


The Things I've Never Had

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Autistic!Jason and if I misrepresented that I'm sorry, Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, Crying, Dysfunctional Family, Emotionally Repressed, Gen, HIV/AIDS, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I put myself in the mind of a coping autistic twelve year old, Introspection, Jason-Centric, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Metaphors, Potentially OOC, as a jew i know these things, but please just pretend that he does, consider: I don't care, everybody hates their parents, his bar mitzvah was, however, i realize that that tag is for jason grace from percy jackson, i think, jason (and the tkf) wouldn't KNOW that whizzer died of aids, like...a day or two after depending on when, listen when i started writing this i totally forgot that, please tell me, so this starts on the monday after that, thank you, the character death is Whizzer no one dies in this, there isn't enough work about Jason!! so i'm here to change that, this fic immediately follows Whizzer dying, uhh, which my guess is it was on saturday because
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: A week of Jason coping and not crying.-“I’m not wearing shoes today,” Jason tells her flatly.Trina presses her lips into a thin line, like she’s used to this, which she is. Another one of his idiosyncrasies. Another day, another neurotic craze. Jason wants every single person in the world to drop dead right now.Everyone except for Whizzer.Jason stops thinking about Whizzer.





	The Things I've Never Had

**Author's Note:**

> hey! so as soon as i finished watching Falsettos, my first thought was "I don't want to read any fanfiction for this fandom. Except I would read one centered around Jason coping with Whizzer's death, but nothing else." Turns out that fic didn't exist, so now it does.  
> This is written in a series of moments and totally skips Wednesday because I said so. Title from "I Never Wanted To Love You" and a HUGE thank you to my dearest friend Grace (@primaryaftermath on Tumblr) for reading over this and helping me edit and come up w a title!!  
>  **SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND/WARNINGS:**  
>  Jason is twelve, autistic, emotionally repressed. Some of the things he says are questionable. Naturally, I don't abide by the same beliefs as the character.  
> He talks about dying a lot, and a little bit about himself dying. This is more due to bad coping than actual desire to die, but be aware.  
>  **ALSO:** I was already nearly finished writing this fic when I realized that neither Jason nor any of the other characters would really know about HIV/AIDS and they wouldn't know that that's what Whizzer had died of. Please just pretend they do because I don't know anything about history. Sorry.  
>  I also have no idea if Marvin lived apart from Trina and Jason (and Mendel) so for the sake of this fic please pretend that he and Whizzer did. Thanks.

Jason doesn’t cry.

 

* * *

 

On Monday, Jason goes to school. He doesn’t smile. He hates smiling. Smiling is for happy people. Jason is unhappy.

It feels like someone’s digging a hole in his chest. He doesn’t talk at all to anyone.

Of the people Jason knows — it’s about eighteen people —, only six of them tell him congratulations for his bar mitzvah. Four people tell him about their other cool weekend plans. Jason excuses himself from all other conversations before he can hear another story about an amusement park or a party.  

Three of Jason’s teachers say mazel tov to him. One of them does it in front of the whole class, and Jason feels murderous. He does the most falsified smile he can. Smiling — even as fake as this — feels like trying to bend iron. The teacher smiles at him. Maybe it’s supposed to be a warm smile, but it looks evil to Jason. She’s out to get him, he knows it.

He keeps his head down and holds his pencil so hard it almost breaks and doesn’t do any work for the whole class.

His math teacher congratulates him as she hands out the worksheet. Jason takes it and nods and mutters, “Thanks.” His teacher asks how his bar mitzvah went. Jason looks her in the eyes and says, “It was shit.”

She doesn’t send him to the principal’s office because she likes him. Jason wishes he’d get sent to the principal’s office. Instead, she makes this twisted concerned/angry face, _tsks_ , says, “Excuse me, Jason, please don’t swear. I’m sorry it wasn’t fun.”

Jason glares at her. It’s not unusual. Jason glares at the general public, because they’re all the worst. The teacher smiles sympathetically and moves past him.

Jason breaks his pencil.

 

* * *

 

On Tuesday morning, his mom fixes his lunch with a resigned slowness, like all of her limbs are moving in molasses. Jason knows she’s been crying. She keeps crying, and then insisting she hasn’t been crying, and then tucking Jason in. Jason doesn’t want her to tuck him in when she’s been crying, because god knows she probably wipes her face with her hands and there’s all her snot and tears on her palms and he doesn’t want that on his blanket. But he lets her tuck him in on Monday night because she looks like she’ll cry even more if he doesn’t. He wants to hug her but he doesn’t want to touch her.

Jason sits in one of the wooden chairs that encircle their dining room table. He stares at his feet. His shoes are by the door, and they need to be tied because he hasn’t retied his shoes in a month, which means they’re probably going to come loose. Jason decides not to care.

He wants to declare that he’s going to school barefoot, but everything is sticking to his throat and nothing seems to be making it past the blockage in his windpipe.

“Jason, do you want me to cut the crusts off?” His mom asks, and Jason shrugs. He knows she can’t see him; she’s facing away, towards the counter, making his sandwich for lunch.

After a moment, she turns around, knife in hand. “Jason, honey.”

“I don’t care,” Jason says.

His mom sighs. “I’m just going to leave them on, then, okay?”

Jason shrugs again. His mom turns back around. Jason watches her press the heels of her palms against the countertop where it ends, and then she puts the sandwich in a Ziploc bag and puts it in his lunchbox.

The hallway floorboards creak as Mendel walks over them, stretching out. Jason calls him Mendel. It’s weird to call him dad. He’s a psychiatrist who happened to marry his mom, and that’s all.

Jason loves Mendel every couple of days. Usually he’s indifferent. Jason’s indifferent to everything today.

“Morning,” Mendel says, yawning, and Jason doesn’t answer. His mom smiles at him, her eyes filled with something that isn’t love.

“The bus is going to be here in five minutes, sweetheart,” she says to Jason. Jason nods. “Put your shoes on.”

“I’m not wearing shoes today,” Jason tells her flatly.

Trina presses her lips into a thin line, like she’s used to this, which she is. Another one of his idiosyncrasies. Another day, another neurotic craze. Jason wants every single person in the world to drop dead right now.

Everyone except for Whizzer.

Jason stops thinking about Whizzer.

His heart aches. It feels like it’s being stabbed with an arrow made of barbed wire. Repeatedly.

“Jason, you have to wear shoes. Mendel, honey, go get his shoes, please?” His mom points toward the door, where Jason’s shoes await on the welcome mat, streaked with dirt. Jason shakes his head.

“I’m doing a social experiment,” he says to his mom. “I’m not wearing shoes. I’m going to see who notices. Then I’m going to use my data for a science project.”

Trina stares at him as Mendel puts his shoes beneath his feet, which all but reach the floor when he sits in these chairs. “Come on, kiddo. Put your shoes on for your mom,” Mendel coaxes. Mendel is bad at coaxing.

“If I put my shoes on, I’m going to take them off when I get on the bus and you won’t be able to stop me,” Jason says.

Trina and Mendel look at each other and Jason sees the look they exchange. Desperate, at their wit’s end, weary.

He reaches down and puts his shoes on, then holds out his feet, one to each parent. “Tie them.”

When he gets to school he leaves his shoes on. The school corridors are disgusting anyway.

 

* * *

 

Jason knows people but he doesn’t have any friends, which is good. Friends are bad. Friends suck. No one should ever be friends with anyone in case their friend gets AIDS and die. Jason wants everyone to get AIDS and die so they’ll leave him alone.

In science class, they’re learning about photosynthesis, which is stupid because they're not plants. The teacher asks if anyone has any questions. Jason raises his hand.

“Yes, Jason?”

“Can girls get AIDS?”

The whole class starts laughing, which puts Jason in a foul mood, even though he was sour to begin with. His teacher looks taken aback. If there were any positive emotions left in Jason’s heart, this would spark satisfaction.

“Relevant questions, please. About photosynthesis.”

“This is a science classroom,” Jason argues. “For learning. Don’t you want me to be educated? Do you want me to go through the American school system feeling cheated because I can’t know the answer to a simple question because it’s not ‘relevant’? I bet AIDS is gonna be way more relevant in my adult life than photosynthesis, _anyway_.” Only after he says this does he realize it sounds like he’s saying he’s gay, and the worst part is he doesn’t care.

He hates his classmates. He can’t possibly hate them more. Even if they call him gay. Even if being gay is the worst thing that’s ever happened, because being gay caused AIDS, and AIDS made Whizzer die.

Suddenly the room feels too big and too small at the same time and Jason is dizzy.

The teacher says sternly, “Jason, please. We’re learning about photosynthesis right now. If you want to stay after class and ask me your — your question, I might be able to help, but please don’t distract from the lesson.”

Jason folds his arms across his chest, stubborn, and doesn’t do any of the worksheets the teacher gives him. He leaves the classroom first.

 

* * *

 

“Charlotte, can girls get AIDS?”

“Jason, what — what?”

“Can girls get AIDS?”

“Yes, definitely — um, sweetie, why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

“Jason…” Through the phone, Charlotte sounds tinny and any sympathy there might have been in her voice sounds weak and forced, even if Jason knows, logically, that it’s not. He also knows logically that Charlotte sees people die almost every day. She’s used to it. She’s used to patients dying. She’s probably not torn up about Whizzer. Jason hopes Charlotte gets AIDS and dies too. And Cordelia with her, so that she’s not all alone on earth wondering why.

“Just curious, Charlotte. Bye.” He hangs up the phone and drags himself back to his room, where he sits on his bed for five hours, staring at the ceiling and mulling over different ways to make every single person he knows contract AIDS and die.

Maybe there’s a way to speak to the dead.

Jason knows there isn’t. Dead people are just dead, and they don’t get do-overs. Jason wants to kill Whizzer for dying, but there’s a chink in his plan, because Whizzer is already dead.

Jason doesn’t cry because he’s lying down so all of the tears just stay in his eyes. The ceiling has two cracks in it. There’s also a small imperfection in the paint job, where someone missed a spot, and there’s a strong chance that someone was Trina. Jason can see the room’s prior ugly green in one small area where the new bland beige misses.

That needs to be fixed.

 

* * *

 

Dinner is quiet because the unspoken rule is to never talk about important things, and the only thing that's happened in any of their lives recently is important so they can't talk about it. Jason cuts one bite of salmon before personally determining that he hates salmon. He hopes salmon gets AIDS and dies.

Maybe if one salmon got AIDS then it would spread to all the other salmon and then people would eat the salmon and they would get AIDS from the salmon and Jason would be the only person who wouldn’t get it because he doesn't like salmon.

“I'm going to paint my ceiling,” he says.

Mendel and Trina do another one of those looks across the table. Jason hates that.

“I can see you, you know,” he adds loudly.

His mom looks at him. “Why...why are you painting your ceiling?”

“Because whoever did it last time did a bad job.” It was his mom who did it last time. Jason knows that. His mom tries not to look hurt and fails. Everything hurts her since Jason’s bar mitzvah. Jason regrets saying this. “Kinda. I just wanna fix it.” _Everything_ , is what he means. _I just want to fix everything._

Jason is pretty sure his mom hates him sometimes. Jason is pretty sure Marvin hates him, too, for having a bar mitzvah just when Whizzer died.

That's fine. Jason hates his stupid bar mitzvah. He wants to block it out of existence. He wants to never think about it. He wishes it hadn't happened.

“Well, painting a whole ceiling is hard,” Mendel says. “You’re not quite old enough.”

Jason glares at Mendel, folds his arms across his chest, and announces, “I'm being excused.”

On any other day his mom would scold him and say something like, “Young man, you stay at the table until I excuse you.” But Trina is weak-willed and she was crying before dinner so Jason just gets up, grabbing his plate on instinct and putting it in the sink.

He wonders if there's paint in their closet or something.

 

* * *

 

Trina thinks Jason is coping. Mendel thinks Jason is coping. Jason hears them talking about it on Thursday. He's not sure how it's been twelve years and his mom still doesn't know how thin the walls in their house are. He hears Mendel say, “Trina, we need to do something about Jason.”

Jason’s first thought is irrationally that his parents are trying to kill him. Two down. Maybe the AIDS is Trina’s fault after all. Maybe she's just gonna keep killing everyone until it's only her and Marvin left and he _has_ to love her. Jason knows it's impossible to make someone stop being gay just because they don't have a man to love. Dumb plan.

His mom gives this helpless sigh and says, “Oh, I know. He's coping, Mendel. This is such a hard time for him.”

Jason, crouched at his parents’ door, glares unnecessarily.

“He's coping,” Mendel agrees. Jason wants to yell, _I'm fine! Someone died at my bar mitzvah! I'm okay! Leave me alone!,_ but he's eavesdropping so he can't. Mendel continues remorsefully, “I wish I could send him to a psychiatrist, but…”

“I know,” his mom sniffles. “Oh, Mendel, I'm worried about him. He's going to keep this up, you know. Until — until —”

Mendel starts saying _shh_ in a soothing voice, which means his mom is crying again. Jason wishes she wouldn’t do that. He wants to — fix it, make her smile again, make her happy again. He wants to not be twelve and useless.

And he's going to ke _ep what_ up, exactly? Jason’s the only person functioning like a normal human being around here. Get up, go to school, come home, eat dinner, and sleep. All Trina does is cry and cook. All Mendel does is treat patients badly. He's a terrible psychiatrist. Maybe he stole his degree. Maybe he stole it from Whizzer, who always fixed every problem.

Thinking about Whizzer makes Jason want to kick the door in until it's splintered into millions of wooden shards, and then lie on those shards until they pierce all his vital organs. He presses his palms to his ears and squeezes his eyes shut until all he can hear is the rush of his own blood coursing through his veins and some sort of underlying tremor.

When that noise blocks all other thoughts, Jason opens his eyes and the door is still there in one piece and Jason still wants to kick it.

He retreats to his bedroom and his mom doesn't tuck him in.

He doesn't tuck himself in. He falls asleep on top of the covers, lights on.

 

* * *

 

Saturday is when Jason goes to Marvin’s, so he protests as best he can for all of Friday.

It starts when Trina wakes him, sorrowful for only a split second until she sees he’s awake, and then her face changes very suddenly like someone switched the filter in front of a projector that's just projecting all of her facial expressions.

“Good morning,” she says. Jason doesn't say it back because so far nothing has happened to make the morning distinguishably good.

Trina strokes a hand through Jason’s hair, which Jason hates, but it seems to give her a strange joy. At least, she gets this kind of faraway smile. Sometimes Jason is positive she's thinking about Marvin.

“So,” she begins, and he sees her brace herself. “Tonight we’re dropping you off at Dad’s, okay?”

“No,” says Jason. This is not okay. Jason never wants to see his father again. All it’s going to do is remind him of Whizzer. Plus he's already established that they're at a point of mutual hatred.

Trina gets a tired look. She appears about fifty billion years older, which is a feat in itself, because she's pretty old as it is. “Jason, I know it's going to be hard, but weekends are your father’s chance to see you.”

“I don't care.” Jason pushes his mom’s hand away from his hair and then fixes it himself even though he can't see his hair so really there's no point.

“I think it'll be good for you,” Trina implores. “Honey, you need to deal with — with what happened.”

“ _I_ need to deal with it?” Jason repeats, frowning. “You've been crying your eyes out since it happened! You can't even say it! I'm the only one acting normal! I'm the only one _dealing_ with it anyway!”

“Jason, please,” Trina says. Jason tries to shoot laser beams at her from his eyes. It doesn't work.

“No.” He crosses his arms. “No way.”

Suddenly something happens. Trina sets her jaw, meets Jason's eyes, and says sternly, “Jason, you are going to Marvin’s for the weekend and that's the end of it. Get packing.”

Maybe if she’d stood up and stomped out it would've made a sound impact, but she stays frozen at the edge of Jason’s bed, her resolve visibly weakening until she leans forward to kiss his forehead. Jason doesn't move, and his mom grasps his face and strokes the pad of her thumb across his cheek. “I love you,” she says gently. He manages an insincere half-smile at her before his face collapses back into the resting face of disinterest it's adopted since his bar mitzvah.

After Trina leaves, Jason lies on his bed and tries to fall back asleep. He fails, and the ceiling mocks him. That one spot of green visible under the beige mocks him. Whizzer mocks him from inside his head.

That's about when Jason decides to get out of bed.

 

* * *

 

The moment he gets home from school, Mendel says, “Hey, kiddo. You excited to go to Marvin’s house?” Jason has to hand it to him. As far as pretending to be okay with things, Mendel is very convincingly at peace with Marvin. Jason knows that's all just crap.

He looks at Mendel. “No.”

Mendel, it seems, is unsure of what to do with that. He stammers for a moment as Jason slings his backpack off his back and onto the floor by the door, which he's specifically not supposed to do. “Well, I think it's a good thing. You haven't really seen him, buddy. I think talking is a good idea.”

“If I go to my dad’s house I won't talk to him,” Jason informs Mendel in a flat voice. He says _dad_ because it annoys Mendel. “We're just going to sit there in silence for two days and not speak at all. Is that what you want?”

Mendel sighs. “I don't know,” he says. “I want everything to be fixed.”

 _I want everyone to get AIDS and die,_ Jason thinks but doesn't say. He says, “You're a psychiatrist. Your whole job is fixing things.”

Mendel sighs again. “I’m trying, Jason.”

Jason studies him for a moment and surrenders. He stalks past his step-dad to his bedroom. Step-dad. There's a word he hasn't used in a million years.

Jason lies on his bed for two hours, staring at the green spot with increasing frustration, the one imperfection in the paint job of this whole stupid bedroom.

Trina comes in and pats his leg gently. “Did you pack?”

“No,” Jason says bluntly.

Trina sighs. “Why not?”

“Because I'm not going.”

“Jason, you have to go.”

“No I don't. I don't have to do anything.”

“You do if I say so, Jason, and I am saying you have to go to your father’s house.”

“He won't care.”

“Of course he will, sweetheart. He’ll love to see you. Jason, there's no way out of this.”

“I'm not going!”

Trina purses her lips. “What do you want, Jason?”

The words are on the tip of his tongue like acid — _I want to speak with Whizzer._ Deadly words that will make Trina cry, instinctive words, a phrase he’s used too many times for granted. For just assuming Whizzer would always be around to speak with. Jason doesn’t want to make his mom cry.

He bites the words off his tongue before they can leap out into the world and poison it. Poison wouldn't be so bad. Everyone would invariably die, at least. It would spread like wildfire. Even Jason would die. He's starting to think that wouldn't be so bad either.

“Fine.” Jason rolls over, away from his mom. “I'll go to Marvin’s.”

Trina squeezes his leg gently, which Jason absolutely does not like. “Thank you, Jason. Dinner is in ten minutes, please wash your hands.”

It hasn't been long, but Jason can already see it. As Trina exits his room, he notices: she's getting over it. Slowly, too slowly, like she's wading against the tide. But one of these days, Trina will be over — Whizzer. He’ll turn into a sad smile after the fifth drink, a murmured, “Whizzer Brown. Yeah, I remember him,” and a memory. That's all. Just a memory.

He’ll turn into a memory to everyone. Someday, Marvin will think, “Who did I fall in love with back in the day? He had a weird name. He also died.”

This thought, more than anything else, makes Jason feel like crying.

Jason doesn't cry. Not ever. Crying is for sad people who are weak. His mom is weak. Jason is not weak. He won't let Whizzer go. Whizzer was always arrogant anyway. Letting him fade to memory and then to oblivion is the worst fate possible.

Jason sits up, his back pressed too stiffly against the headboard of his bed, and glances around the room. Scans the walls. Says quietly, “Whizzer, do you think I should visit Marvin?”

Except for Whizzer doesn't answer because he's _dead_.

Won't cry. Will not cry. Absolutely under no circumstances will Jason cry. Stupid Whizzer.

“Okay,” he whispers.

He goes to Marvin’s.

 

* * *

 

The second Jason steps foot in Marvin’s house, he wants to leave. He wants to scream at Marvin, who's greeting him with this obviously forced smile, reaching to hug him. Everything —

It's empty.

The house. All of the life has been sucked out of it. Ugly, ugly house, and it smells bland and the jackets are hung neatly on the coat rack and the couch cushions are meticulously placed and it's wrong. It's all wrong.

Jason suddenly but fiercely hates this dumb house.

“How are you, kiddo?” Marvin asks him, and Jason can't look at his father, can't bring himself to meet his eyes and acknowledge the thing, can't ignore it.

“How's school?” Marvin presses. Jason doesn't answer. School is terrible. School is always terrible. Jason hates everyone.

He almost says, _I’m concocting a plan to make everyone get AIDS and die._ He doesn't think that'll go over well with Marvin.

There's a pause, where the silence feels crushing. And then his dad abandons all pretense of normalcy and says hoarsely, “Talk to me, Jason. Please.”

It's desperate. Grasping at straws, holding onto everything dear to him. Maybe — maybe Marvin doesn't hate him, but _needs_ him. Because, because, because the only person who's allowed to be more torn up than Jason is Marvin.

And Marvin is...tearing at the seams.

“We…” his father continues, in his raspy voice. “We need each other, Jason, at...times like this…but please, just talk to me. Say something.”

“I don't know,” Jason begins, with the intent of continuing, but he falls short and his sentence hangs, complete yet incomplete, like their family. He tears his eyes from the bare living room and finally looks at his father. He forces himself to speak. “I can't fix it.”

His dad reaches out and Jason doesn't want to touch him, even though all he wants is to drown in something, but he steps backwards. Marvin’s hand falls to his side. “I know. I know.”

Jason almost doesn't say it, but his tongue pushes the words through his teeth: “I miss him.”

It doesn't feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders. More like he's still chained up but at least now his mouth isn't gagged.

Marvin doesn't hug him and Jason feels his heart squeeze and it hurts, for a second, before falling to numbness again. Instead his dad says softly, “Me too, Jason. I miss him so much.”

Jason looks away. Too much. He wants to miss Whizzer alone. He doesn't want to miss Whizzer. He doesn't want Whizzer to be in a position where Jason has to miss him.

There's another long pause — loaded with meaning or absolutely void of it, depending on who you asked, probably.

Marvin says, “Hey, let’s watch a movie.”

And Jason looks around.

He can't stay in this living room for one more second. None of it is right. It's like as if someone drew a picture of a living room in 2-D and then brought it to life, but everything is flat and bleak and dead. Like they forgot the most important details. Like it’s missing something glaringly obvious. Missing —

Whizzer.

Whizzer’s coat, in a pile at the foot of the couch. Whizzer’s hair product, which anyone could smell from two rooms away. Whizzer, humming to himself as he clicked through channels on the TV, crushing his figure into the cushions, legs outstretched and leaving room only for someone small. Like Jason. Whizzer asking, “What do you want to watch, Jason?” As if Jason was an adult and not twelve years old, as if Jason had a single opinion that would matter to Whizzer. Marvin, watching with a strange mixture of emotion clear on his face: wistfulness, for losing his kid to his boyfriend, and affection, for his boyfriend and son bonding. Maybe he was planning a future, while he watched them watch TV. Maybe he was thinking that someday it would be just like this, but with Whizzer as a husband.

Jason shakes his head. “I want to go to bed.”

He wonders if the words pierce through Marvin’s chest to his heart, like this whole house does to Jason.

Marvin frowns. “We haven't eaten dinner, Jason.”

“I want to go to bed,” he repeats. _And not wake up until this house has been demolished, torn to the ground, burned to a crisp, eradicated from existence._ “I'm tired.”

“Jason,” Marvin says.

“Do you want me to be tired for the whole weekend?” Jason challenges. “If I don't sleep now I'm gonna be all screwed up. Okay? Let me _sleep,_ I want to _sleep!_ ”

He's whining. Primitive tactic, childish tactic, but it works. Marvin crosses his arms and uncrosses them and runs his hands through his hair.

“Alright,” he surrenders. His tone is defeated. His whole disposition is defeated: slouching shoulders, messy hair, tired eyes, weary. Jason almost feels bad. He looks back to the TV. It's off, the screen black, the remote at a right angle next to the back right corner of the coffee table.

And that’s it. The TV is off and it's like a punch to the gut and all at once Jason can't breathe and he needs to get _out_ , get out of this house that's haunted with Whizzer yet so empty of everything that distinguished him from the masses, it's hard to take in enough air —

Whizzer, sickly in his hospital bed, pale and cold and grey —

Whizzer, collapsing into Marvin as he’s led away —

Whizzer, brushing Jason’s shoulder with his fingers once before he goes —  

Whizzer, dying —

Dying —

Spinning —

He's in the spare room, and doesn't remember walking here. The spare room has always been Jason’s room. It looks the same as it always has. Exactly the same, to the picture next to the window, pinned up with sticky glue stuff.

Jason doesn't look at the picture. He knows who’s in it.

He collapses on the bed and falls asleep despite the ache tightening in his chest.

* * *

 

There's a tap on the door and then another two, and then, as Jason is opening his eyes, his dad comes in and flicks the light on. He's carrying a plate. It smells like pizza. This is confirmed when Marvin sets the plate down on the dresser next to the door and Jason sits up.

“Thought you would be hungry,” Marvin explains. According to the clock by the bed, it's 7:35 in the evening. Jason is famished. He nods and Marvin hands him the plate.

“Sleep well?” He asks tentatively. Jason takes a bite out of the pizza.

“Yeah,” he answers, through a mouthful of food. Marvin raises an eyebrow and doesn't comment.

Another day he would've said, “Jason, close your mouth and don't talk when you're chewing.” Everyone is treading lightly around Jason and it's driving him crazy. What do they think will happen? Jason is fine, _fine,_ he misses Whizzer, doesn't think about Whizzer, takes another bite of pizza, _fine._

“I was thinking about what we could do,” Marvin tells him. “While I’ve got you.”

 _Nothing,_ Jason wants to suggest. How about they do nothing for two days.

“And?”

His dad looks at him. “I didn’t really — I figured you would want to help. Think of some things.”

Jason takes another bite of pizza and chews viciously. He shakes his head.

“I thought about — there are some museums around,” Marvin says hesitantly. “Or we could just...stay in. Relax.”

Relax, like someone didn’t just die. Relax, like it didn’t kill both of their spirits. Relax, like the life isn’t as gone from this house as it is from Whizzer. Jason clenches his fist around the crust of the pizza and takes a final bite out of protest. “No thanks,” he says sharply, dropping the remaining pizza onto the plate. “‘M tired. I wanna sleep.”

His father looks so melancholy. He opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, takes a short breath, and then stops, closing his mouth. He looks at Jason. Jason doesn’t like that. He feels as if he’s being examined, x-rayed, like a specimen, like a project. “Jason, I know this is hard, but you can talk to me, okay?” Marvin says quietly. He rests a hand on Jason’s shoulder and Jason wants to throw him off but instead he stiffens because if he doesn’t he’ll lean into the touch and he doesn’t _want_ to be touched he just wants — wants — someone to be there.

“Okay, dad,” Jason mumbles, thrusting his plate towards his father. “Can I just sleep now?”

Maybe it’s the _dad_ that does it, but Marvin stands up and squeezes Jason’s shoulder and takes his plate. “Of course, kiddo. I love you.”

He looks like he’s about to cry, and Jason _doesn’t_ cry and he definitely can only handle one crying adult in his lifetime and Trina has already filled that position, so he just turns over because he can’t say it back, not now, not yet.

The lights shut off and Jason burrows into his blankets and tries not to think about absolutely anything at all.

* * *

 

It’s five o’clock in the morning and Jason can’t sleep anymore. Not one second. He’s tired of sleeping.

He gets out of bed and pads over to the window, where the outside world is still dark, the streetlights casting shadows over bushes and trees. Marvin’s house is quiet. Even though it’s the middle of the night, and houses in the middle of the night are _supposed_ to be quiet, it feels wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything is wrong.

Jason stares at a streetlight until his eyes hurt. He blinks twice.

The picture next to the window is grainy and Jason almost can’t see it, but by the light of the outside, the streetlights, there’s enough of a glow that he can make out the faces. Recent photo, just not that recent, because everyone’s — there.

Trina, smiling even though there are lines of exhaustion across her face, and in her eyes there’s something that looks like concern. Trina never stops worrying. Never ever stops. What’s she always worried about? She stands rigid, straight-backed. In anyone else it would look like pride; in Trina it’s adherence to rules. She stands as straight as her ex-husband is not.

Mendel next to her, unprepared for the photo. His right arm wrapped around Trina, his left hand resting on Jason’s shoulder. He’s halfway between his normal face and a smile, and absently, Jason thinks that’s better, that he wasn’t ready. Mendel isn’t smiling in this picture. Good. Mendel should never smile. Nobody should ever smile.

Jason, in the middle, crammed between Mendel and Marvin. Mendel’s hand resting on his right shoulder, while Marvin’s palm grips the back of Jason’s neck. It’s fatherly, and Jason knows this disdainfully, glares at Marvin. _How dare you._ The Jason from the photograph is smiling too, which makes Jason hate himself, because he doesn’t deserve to smile either. There’s no reason to ever be smiling.

On Jason’s left, Marvin. Beaming, ready for the picture, dressed in the same boring plaid shirt and corduroy pants he’s worn since birth, practically. Marvin always tries to dress as if he’s going to be photographed. Marvin always tries to impress. Jason wants to hate him, wants to tear him out of the picture.

And on the far left of the picture, his arm snug around Marvin’s waist. Whizzer. Always dressed to impress whether he means to or not, although he always does, hair perfected to a T, brown leather jacket hung around his shoulders. Smiling broadly, almost smirking, like he knows something. Their stupid little family wrapped around Jason, pretending, pretending, pretending to be okay. Pretending to be a family.

Jason tugs the picture off the wall and stares at it.

He crumples.

It’s five o’clock in the morning when Jason starts crying, his eyes stinging like someone put acid in them, tears running down his cheeks, replacing ones he swipes away until he surrenders to it, head in hands, and drops the picture to the floor because he can’t crush it, can’t ruin it, can’t tear it, this is all he has left —

The floor creaks. Jason doesn’t look up but he tries to swallow his sobs and instead his shoulders shake with silent crying. Marvin sits down next to him and puts an arm around him and pulls him close.

“I know,” he whispers against Jason’s hair. “I know, Jason.”

Marvin doesn’t really know, and Jason cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this. I know it's really sad but I felt like it had to exist, you know? Also I'm usually not so good at writing the gritty stuff so I'm proud of this, and even more proud that it's like 5.5k words. In any case, I'm on tumblr @vivilevone or @do-you-ever-really-crash, so you can talk to me about this (or anything else) on there!


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